Human beings rely heavily on visual cues. The graphical user interface for personal computers helped those machines gain widespread acceptance, and the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), with its graphical presentation of data, did the same for the Internet.
A key component to these kinds of visual interfaces is the mechanism for user input. Devices such as hand-held computer mice, trackballs, and touch pads are used to allow the intuitive movement of an onscreen cursor through the visual interface. But these are two-dimensional input devices, useful for providing input to the two-dimensional user interface on computer displays.
As computer processing power increases, more and more user interfaces are incorporating three-dimensional features. Unfortunately, the mice, trackballs and touch pads currently in use are not the most ideal for navigating through a three-dimensional environment. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved approach to navigating through three-dimensional interfaces.